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Qantas has been canceling flights at twice the rate of its primary competitor, Virgin Australia, which boasted the lowest monthly cancellation rates among major domestic airlines over the past year.
Virgin Australia cancelled just 1.6% of its flights on average over the year to June 2025, while the Qantas group cancelled 3.2%, or almost one in every 30 of its scheduled flights.
Cancellation rates typically average 2.2%, according to an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report released on Tuesday. Jetstar beat both airlines in the month of June, cancelling just 1.1% of flights.
The Canberra-Sydney flight route has seen above-average cancellations, hitting 12% in June, or nearly 15% for the Qantas group and half that for Virgin-leased Link services.
“The airlines have cited poor weather, including strong winds in Sydney and fog in Canberra,” the ACCC report read.
In a statement Qantas said: “We have had the most on time flights of the major domestic airlines for the past year, but our cancellation rate has been much higher than it should be.
“We have a number of initiatives in place to improve our operational performance.”
Cancellations across the industry have declined since 2023, as have late arrivals, which fell to a three-year low of less than 18%.
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Just 15.2% of Virgin flights were late in May, the lowest proportion for any major airline since monitoring began in 2022, though that picked up to 20.4% in June, just higher than Qantas’s 19.6%.
While airline performance has improved, prices for customers have risen, the ACCC found. Average air fares were much higher in April 2025 than the same month in 2024, even after adjusting for inflation, as back-to-back public holidays saw demand surge.
Airlines also raked in more revenue per passenger in June 2025 than they did in June 2024, despite downward pressure on operating costs from falling jet fuel prices, the ACCC said. At the same time, airlines were flying 172,000 fewer seats across Australia in June than they had been in 2019, even though customer demand has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
“This has likely resulted in people paying more to fly than they would have otherwise,” the watchdog’s report read.
Airfares on major Australian airlines have also risen significantly compared to the cost of jet fuel in 2025, according to new analysis from the competition watchdog.
Cancellation rates typically average 2.2%, according to an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report released on Tuesday. Jetstar beat both airlines in the month of June, cancelling just 1.1% of flights.
The Canberra-Sydney flight route has seen above-average cancellations, hitting 12% in June, or nearly 15% for the Qantas group and half that for Virgin-leased Link services.
“The airlines have cited poor weather, including strong winds in Sydney and fog in Canberra,” the ACCC report read.
In a statement Qantas said: “We have had the most on time flights of the major domestic airlines for the past year, but our cancellation rate has been much higher than it should be.
“We have a number of initiatives in place to improve our operational performance.”
Cancellations across the industry have declined since 2023, as have late arrivals, which fell to a three-year low of less than 18%.
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Just 15.2% of Virgin flights were late in May, the lowest proportion for any major airline since monitoring began in 2022, though that picked up to 20.4% in June, just higher than Qantas’s 19.6%.
While airline performance has improved, prices for customers have risen, the ACCC found. Average air fares were much higher in April 2025 than the same month in 2024, even after adjusting for inflation, as back-to-back public holidays saw demand surge.
Airlines also raked in more revenue per passenger in June 2025 than they did in June 2024, despite downward pressure on operating costs from falling jet fuel prices, the ACCC said. At the same time, airlines were flying 172,000 fewer seats across Australia in June than they had been in 2019, even though customer demand has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
“This has likely resulted in people paying more to fly than they would have otherwise,” the watchdog’s report read.
Airfares on major Australian airlines have also risen significantly compared to the cost of jet fuel in 2025, according to new analysis from the competition watchdog.
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